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social scientist

What would it take to get you to do what I want? If I looked you in the eye when asking? If it was a Tuesday? If your name sounded like mine?

According to scientists, it’s the last. We feel more warmly towards people or things we associate with ourselves, like if my name was Mary Anne and yours was Marilyn. They’re close enough in sound and visual likeness that I’d be more apt to do you a favor than one for, say, Richard or Jennifer.

These kinds of findings, argued Nancy Harhut at Integrated Marketing Week, have implications for marketers because we’re trying to get people to do things all the time: click on a link, choose our product over another, like our company on Facebook.

Knowing the instinctive, reflexive behaviors that people rely on when making decisions helps our marketing strategies and how we go about designing the prompts or triggers to get others to do what we want.

Harhut identified seven that will help you on your way to world domination.